[Demloth of Dol Amroth]

after the ring is destroyed, i'd think that very slowly, especially after Aragorn's death, men would begin to get lazy, greedy, and more intermingled with men not of numenorean descent, and thus, would begin squabbling among themselves over politics, land, and such. any other existing races-hobbits, dwarves, would probably also be given the push-and-shove. i'm not saying that all men would be diabolically evil, just that the ones with great integrity, like Aragorn, would pass away, and men would begin to forget. "and some things that should not have been forgotten, were lost." there would, in a few centuries, almost definetily be war, corruption, and such. so even living after the ring's destruction might not be so great(in terms of peacefulness), but you would not be without any fighting or evil even afterwards. a shadow of morgoth's evil lays over ALL the denizens of middle-earth, even elves-which makes them more critical of the men and dwarves, and the shadow lay sometimes even in the hobbits. look at sandyman (was that his name?), the hobbit who catered to Saruman, and the Sackville-Bagginses. No, evil does not depart from middle-earth til The End, or whatever it was called. having the ring destroyed also doesn't necessarily bar any great adventures from happening ever again-you know, not all them istari were accounted for...and there were still some balrogs hidden somewhere...you can't really say for certain that everything would be bliss and such after the ring is destroyed. look at poor ol' Frodo! still bedridden a lot, years after he is stabbed by the morgul blade. wow, this thread really gives me a bone to chew-it's late, so i should go sleep-i might come back tomorrow.

[ October 20, 2002: Message edited by: Demloth of Dol Amroth ]